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6th Central European Conference in Regional Science – CERS, 2017 - 611 - Successful re-settlements in Slovakia. How rural communities in central europe can be successful DAVID COLE Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University Tajovského 10, 975 90 Banská Bystrica Slovakia [email protected] Abstract With rural-development, high-profile projects tend to garner much of the attention in terms of media coverage and political focus. In Slovakia, this can be seen with the reconstruction of some of the castles, manor houses, and other historical buildings around the country. There is, however, a private movement afoot that is quietly re- vitalizing areas and objects that have been abandoned or disused for a long period of time. Though these objects don’t have the historical significance of places of royalty, they do have significant cultural value. One such region that is undergoing resurgence and stabilization is central Slovakia, more specifically the area south of the Banská Bystrica/Zvolen commuter zone. Even as new homes are being built, old businesses and buildings are being repaired and repurposed, creating ideal small town communities. This paper will detail the small-scale efforts that are occurring on an individual level that are helping to stabilize a rural sub-set in Slovakia. Key words: rural development, abandoned properties, creative economy, resettlement JEL Classification: R11 1 Introduction For many demographers and economist, it has become a foregone conclusion that mass agglomeration is the key to success, both economically as a nation and for individuals with their life-goal ambitions. In the case of Slovakia, the capital city plays the role of governmental, financial, and gateway centre to the rest of the country. In addition, with two major car companies located within the commuter zone, it also plays host to automobile manufacturing. As such, Bratislava has 11 percent of the population and a GDP that is 2.4 times the national average (Eurostat, 2016). Add to this, the near convergence of the Trnava and Nitra commuter zone, you have a population containing almost a fifth of the country (see figure 1). Slovakia can only claim to have one metropolitan area as its other cities are considered to be medium and small urban areas. Still, 63% of the population live outside these commuter zones (OECD, 2012). Central European countries have been seeing significant metropolitan migration, mostly centred on the capital city for some time now. As with all nations, the agglomeration process creates a concentration of wealth, some of which is based on land value i.e. land in the urban core is likely to have appreciating assets based on location (land rent). If so much value is created due to proximity, it would seem that a land tax would play a bigger part of governments’ revenue, yet land values gets under-reported in a nation’s taxing schemes. In Australia, for example, a country that has had a long history of calculating property value based on unimproved land, one study found that land rent made up 26% of GDP; yet tax collection based on this value did not come close to reflecting this value (Dwyer, 2003). Historically, property taxes in Slovakia have been based on building size, a system that was criticized by the International Monetary Fund (2016) as it did not take into consideration price differences among cities and regions. For 6th Central European Conference in Regional Science – CERS, 2017 - 612 - Europe, redirecting taxes based on land value would mean a need for higher density construction and cityscapes that would closer resemble Hong-Kong rather than London, Paris, or Amsterdam. Figure 1: Slovakia’s urban centres with surrounding commuter core. Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The cost burden of proximity creates a need to limit ones tangible assets (cars, home size, yards, etc.) in order to afford urban or even suburban living. If economic benefits of living were measured through tangible accumulation rather than the intangible experiences of city life, then rural communities could be seen as having a higher utility. To put it more succinctly, you can own far more stuff the further you move from the urban core especially land-based assets. It needs to be remembered that man is a creative, empire building creature, with a desire to bring meaning to one’s life and leave a respectful legacy to the future generation. For many, this creativity is expressed through individual land/home development, i.e. a man’s home is his castle. This creative outlet in the urban centre is limited to a wealthy few. While there is much focus on the expanding economic activities in metropolitan centres, in Slovakia, a quiet small-scale reformation is occurring in a few small towns outside the commuter zone. Some small towns are being transformed and their idyllic settings are being returned to their former glory, all without significant fanfare. To shed light on this phenomenon, this paper will focus on one specific community and surrounding area in central Slovakia: the twin-towns of Pliešovce-Sása and the more rustic community of Zaježová. These communities have completely different approaches to their re-development, and are both experiencing a sort of renaissance. Through interviews with the main actors in these communities, this paper will present a qualitative study of their successful recovery. It will attempt to determine if the untapped assets of small rural communities are viable alternatives to agglomerate living. 2 Nostalgia vs. Modernity as a competitive advantage for small town communities In a pure capitalist concept, neoclassic theory would dictate that as one area becomes too expensive or too inconvenient to live in, people would migrate to a more inexpensive locations looking for better opportunities and a different style of life. Spatially, this rebalancing does exist outside of metropolitan areas, where cheaper suburbs and exurbs spring up to meet the demands for appropriate living space. An even more profound cost advantage would be to move 6th Central European Conference in Regional Science – CERS, 2017 - 613 - further afield, to the less populated rural areas outside of the influence of a metropolitan area. The cost advantage of the rural area needs to be viewed from both an economic and social point of view. Neoclassic theory suggests that man is forward-looking and is thus mainly concerned with modernity. This view disregards the past, overlooking the historical markers that gives us our identity. This historical desire could be described as a state of nostalgia—a sentimentality for a past time or place associated with happiness. In terms of demographic spatial relationship, the small town is rooted in nostalgia and urban centres in modernity. Although this statement may seem superficial and rudimentary, there are historical references to the problem of urban modernity by philosophers, artists, and sociologists. Svetlana Boym (2002) describes nostalgic sociologist such as Max Weber, Georg Simmel, György Lukacs not as being anti-modern, but rather, critical of the effects of modernization, much of which is rooted in the urban setting. Central European nations under the auspice of a command economy focused myopically on the future with their profound adherence to high modernity – a concept with strong confidence in scientific and technological progress; a reliance on experts (scientists, engineers, and bureaucrats); an attempt to master nature to meet human needs; spatial ordering (city planning, housing, and transportation); and a general disregard for historical, geographical, and social context in development (Scott, 1998). The end result was a cityscape of concrete and cold-grey tedium. The post-cold-war period saw a change in central European countries from high modernity to a unique form of post-modernity. This new form of modernism can be described as a hyper- technological version of modernism (pg. 126, Appignanesi et al, 1995). The unique position of having to play catch-up to western countries led to a more distinct worship of technological-led post-modernism. In terms of geographical development, the urban centres become the launching point for this new modernity, especially the capital city. Anthony Giddens (1990) suggests that we live in an era of disembeddedness of time and space, where there is a blurring of the lines separating the local from the global and the past from the future. Individuals no longer need to be in physical presence with each other in order to interact in what he refers to as time-space distanciation. Modern ICT is continuously allowing for the untethering of work to a specific location. This makes alternatives to urban, suburban, and exurban living possible, i.e. economic opportunities needn’t to be solely dependent on proximity to a large urban core especially when it becomes economically and spiritually repressive. Alternatively, rural economics needn’t to be solely dependent on the primary and secondary economy of farming, mineral extraction, and manufacturing. It can be said that nostalgic sentiment is in short supply in the metropolitan centre but can be found in abundance in the rural region. This presents a competitive advantage based on the abundance of nostalgic elements found in rural areas and small towns. Authors (Martin 2002, 2004, 2005, Kitson 2004, Tyler 2004) insist that regional competitive advantage needs to include not only "hard" productivity but also take into consideration "softer" dimensions of the social economy. When applying the softer dimensions to regional development, it is the specific feature, attraction or uniqueness which has a certain value for customers/consumers in a region (residents, tourists, businessmen, and investors), and these customers prefer this value over the offerings of competing regions (Borseková, Vaňová, 2011). For the more rural setting, the competitive advantages are “soft resources” (landscape, historical, cultural heritage). These soft resources can be utilized by the small town community for the nostalgic sentiment they embody.

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